President Droupadi Murmu to honour cleanest cities at ‘Swachh Survekshan’ event
New Delhi: President Droupadi Murmu is set to confer awards across various categories at the 10th edition of the ‘Swachh Survekshan’ to honour cleanest cities in the country, an official statement said on Monday.
Under the aegis of the Department of Urban Development, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, ‘Swachh Survekshan (SS) Awards 2025-26’ will recognise India’s cleanest cities, celebrating their outstanding contributions to Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban.
President Murmu will confer awards at Vigyan Bhawan in the presence of Union Minister Manohar Lal and Tokhan Sahu, Minister of State, MoHUA.
This year’s awards also recognise top performers from the ‘Swachh Shehar Jodi’ initiative that has fostered peer learning between 70 mentor cities and 191 mentee cities across 33 States/UTs to accelerate urban waste management excellence.
The ‘Swachh Shehar Jodi’ Initiative was launched by the Manohar Lal on September 27, 2025, as the first-ever urban waste management mentorship and peer-learning programme.
At the launch event, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed to commence this initiative between all mentor and mentee cities.
“The SS 2025-26 awards serve as a celebration of the collective achievements of cities and States in the past decade and a renewed commitment to sustain on-ground achievements,” according to the statement.
‘Swachh Survekshan’ has grown in scale from 73 urban local bodies (ULBs) in 2016 to over 4,751 cities in its latest edition.
It introduces several key enhancements, including greater emphasis on citizen feedback, expanded coverage of Urban River Fronts, Coastlines and Water bodies and focused indicators on prevention of open defection and open urination, cleanliness of tourist and heritage hotspots, and behaviour change initiatives in schools.
As part of the 10th edition, ULBs were evaluated across 43 indicators spanning 10 key assessment areas.
More than 3,000 trained assessors conducted extensive on-ground evaluations across the country, supported by real-time GPS-enabled monitoring.
From evidence submission to verification, the assessment process remained fully digital, transparent, and subject to rigorous quality checks at every stage, said the statement.